I have a habit of being a workaholic and taking on too much work. Trying to be smarter than I should be. I spent a lot of time recently simplifying my answers to questions, accepting that a fix is a fix, even if I don’t know why it was broken in the first place. But recently I’ve become a resource to other members on the team. It’s getting in the way of my work though, and I’m not being paid enough, I’m a junior developer not a senior developer.
How do I tell my coworkers to politely not bother me and look at the documentation instead of asking me simple questions?
Top comments (4)
I'd start with 'Hmm, I don't know, check the docs' or 'I'm in the middle of something right now, check the docs'. Maybe you could even bring your own headphones and start wearing those to signal people that you do not want to be disturbed.
PS: In 'You’re friendly neighborhood junior DEV', change the 'You're' (meaning 'you are') to 'Your' :)
Lool, I didn’t even catch that
This can be super tough if you are being forced to be the go-to person for everything. I have been there and it can be incredibly disrupting to your day. If you have good docs then there is no reason why those should not be the first resource used by others. If you feel uncomfortable redirecting people to the docs(I know I always did, I felt bad for not helping!) then it might be worth having a discussion with your manager. They can probably help you communicate your concerns to the rest of the team. Another option would be to bring it up at a team retro. Hopefully once others hear that it is getting in the way of your work they will be a lot more respectful of your time. GOOD LUCK!
I wish we had any docs, this was just the docs for a plug in we were using. And thanks! Things seem to be going better over all 😊